Weekly Roundups #5: Competition Commission Approves MultiChoice's Sale Of Insurance Company To Sanlam, New Ghostbusters Film Is In Development, Mzansi Magic Debuts New Reality Show In November And More

• Sanlam acquires a 60% stake in MultiChoice's insurance company

The Competition Commission has approved the sale of 60% of MultiChoice’s insurance business, NMS Insurance Services (NMSIS), to Sanlam. Its products include life insurance offerings like funeral cover and subscription waivers.

The Commission approved the acquisition without conditions, saying it was unlikely to substantially lessen or prevent competition in any market.

Sanlam will pay R1.2 billion cash upfront, with a potential performance-based cash earn-out of up to R1.5 billion.

• Listing Mauritius returns with a third installment on BBC Lifestyle

The 10-part series, set to premiere on Wednesday, 16 October 2024, at 20:00 on BBC Lifestyle (DStv Channel 174), is filmed on the stunning island off the East African coast. Famed for its pristine beaches, luxurious resorts, and tropical climate, Mauritius has become an enticing destination for foreign property investors, including a growing interest from South Africans.

• Barney's World makes its highly anticipated debut on Cartoonito

In this exciting new series co-produced by Mattel Television and Corus Entertainment’s Nelvana, Barney and his friends embark on colourful, music-filled adventures that teach kids timeless lessons about friendship, kindness, and self-love. Set in magical and fun locations—from a splash pad and enchanted forest to a desert pirate island—Barney’s World is sure to spark imaginations across Africa.

• Moon Girl And Devil Dinosaur will make a cameo in Spidey And His Amazing Friends on Disney Junior 

• Cold Case reboot not moving forward on CBS 

• An untitled DC animated series is in the works at Cartoon Network 

• New Ghostbusters film is in development 

• Reacher has been renewed for a season 4 at Prime Video 

• Velma has been cancelled after two seasons on Max

• Paramount sells former trademark Noggin that is looking to be revived

• Doc Harris, the English narrator for the ‘Dragon Ball Z’ series, has sadly passed away at age of 76

• The pilot for 'The Thundermans' has been FOUND by YouTube user Andrew Warra! 

• Matshai Sisters, Mzansi Magic’s Bold New Reality Show Coming in November

This groundbreaking reality show takes you inside a whirlwind of family drama, fierce battles, and a chilling curse that threatens to tear them apart. These bold sisters are anything but shy! Their candidness and clashes promise to deliver a viewing experience that’s as riveting as it is relatable.

 

Important News Dated 12 October

As some of you already know, Google has killed their traffic for a lot of independent sites so what this means rather is publishers lose about 50% to 90% of its audience and each update to their system ends up leading to more declines. So now I opted to sort of portion my content from the website with that of Insidus Television (my YouTube channel).

For now, some of the videos are in low quality but we plan to fix this overtime as we navigate this whole ordeal with Google which brings another topic to the agenda which is the fate of Entertainment Inside Us and Insidus Plus.

Before we had three websites and opted to close one of them but soon we could look to consolidate this under one umbrella but it depends on how our sites perform in the coming months. Right now, I don't see any hope coming from these updates and would rather just explore other avenues.

We have a Facebook, Instagram and an X (formerly Twitter) and similar to YouTube I might as well try to curate exclusive content for these platforms. Right now with Insidus Television we are kind of trying to navigate with what works, what doesn't or what can we improve from these results as it's different audience from that field compared to our websites.

Canal+'s Offer For MultiChoice Remains Unchanged As The Company Pivots Toward Streaming

Last month, it was reported that the French broadcaster Canal+ and MultiChoice have begun engaging with local legislation regarding the change in ownership. As part of the agreement, Canal+ would maintain a 45% hold of the company while the remaining 55% goes to various shareholders at MultiChoice.

With its current stake, Canal+ is opting to put all its focus on DStv, GOtv, M-Net and SuperSport as mentioned by the brand's CEO a couple months back. This led MultiChoice to make Sanlam a majority shareholder in their insurance company while others like Irdeto and Namola will probably survive as little investment goes into their operation.

Both these companies are seeking to comply with government's cap to foreign ownership and this could lead to MultiChoice giving Canal+ it's ROA business which is home to brands like Africa Magic and Pearl Magic. As Canal+ seeks local partners to manage the licenses of DStv in South Africa.

MultiChoice SA is putting all their focus on Showmax as their consumer base on DStv plummets hoping to extend its reach to 50 million households by 2028. It's likely that Canal+ will manage their pay-tv operations and serve as a collaborator of some sort to Showmax.

Ideally, it doesn't really seem impossible for them to own these platforms rather than the bulk of channels under their belt which include SABC News and Moja Love as the license holder would be in charge of those brands. If anything, one could imagine Showmax getting spun off into a standalone company.

Right now, neither MultiChoice SA or Showmax can survive without the income coming from DStv which is why they're hoping to skyrocket the number of platforms for the streamer. Although subscriber numbers have yet to be unveiled it has been estimated that Showmax has around 500000 to 3 million subscribers.

Could eMedia Investments Look To Revive Nuusdag On eExtra?

A few years ago, eMedia Investments decided to axe the News and Sports channel from the Openview platform as the channel struggled to gain appeal from viewers and also very little income was being generated from the channel. eMedia Investments put all its effort on SABC Sport and the remaining offering to substitute this offering.

Nuusdag served as one of those flagship shows by eMedia Investments and not through their pay-tv outlet eNCA as a rivalled offering to KykNet's eNuus. Despite both being produced under one umbrella, Openview had the reach through eExtra which at the time was the only option DStv Access consumers had to Afrikaans content.

With eMedia Investments already doing so well with eNuus on KykNet one would assume that Nuusdag would rise to the occasion but that wasn't the case as there were numerous spelling errors and also competition. Aside from KykNet, SABC 2 also offered Afrikaans and paired that with 7de Laan basically putting Nuusdag at a precarious position.

They moved it to 8pm where the competition was rather stiff outside DStv but still Nuusdag struggled to garner appeal that it was shuttered. For years on end, eMedia Investments had bombarded the eExtra's schedule not that it was bad as the Afrikaans voiceover helped build a community for which the company had less of a history.

This grow Kuiertyd's already dominant telenovela offering to include locally produced films, short form series like Die Fakuliteit and lastly the company's first ever Afrikaans soap Kelders Van Gehieme. I think the question boils down to whether they could look into reviving Nuusdag or something similar to that for Openview consumers.

After SABC decided to axe 7de Laan and move further Afrikaans content to SABC 3 the viewership for this plummeted and even SABC 3's first dubbed show Innocence failed to garner any notice with Nuus ratings that has been halved. eMedia Investments supplemented 7de Laan with Kelders Van Gehieme in the same timeslot.

Them looking to revive Nuusdag or offering something similar wouldn't seem far fetched a stretch. In recent years, we've seen Die Kontrak and Bôll And Ôll pulling in a crowd a format was abandoned by the company when Kuiertyd was first incepted and maybe this newer format will be broadcast on weekends.

#BoycottKuiertyd: "Consumers Alarmed That eExtra Failed To Mention That Op Dun Ys Will Not Offer English Subtitles"

During the week, eExtra unveiled the Turkish drama Op Dun Ys known in Turkey as Sadakatsiz which followed the life of Asli after her world turns upside down after she catches her husband cheating on her with another woman. Interestingly enough, Telemundo is also doing a story depicting the life of a woman's fallen marriage.

But what got a lot of consumers attention was that Op Dun Ys became the first of many shows in eMedia's portfolio to not offer English subtitles. Since Kuiertyd's inception, it was usually their prime focus to include this one feature to their consumers as the majority of households hail from different backgrounds.

When Op Dun Ys was allocated on eExtra you could only guess that this matter would be receive a lot of coverage.

According to eMedia Investments, the content provider for Op Dun Ys doesn't offer subtitles hence the reason they went ahead without them but ensured fans that their other shows (including Viola) will offer subtitles. But this didn't stop consumers from taking shots at the channel for not informing them ahead of time.

Some feeling like eMedia Investments hasn't accommodated for their needs as seen with other programming demand that Op Dun Ys be stripped from the channel. While others mention suffering from a disability and Op Dun Ys despite looking like a superb series is a hit miss as subtitles was a means of inclusion.

But the reception isn't all as bad it turns out to be as some were impressed with the dialogue and the chemistry between characters I think the only question would have to boil down to the winning team.

The fact Op Dun Ys doesn't have subtitles puts the show in a precarious position as the viewer count will likely drop and eExtra would continue to offer the show if not ship it to ePlesier. Although eMedia Investments had seen a lot of growth with this offering a majority of Openview consumers are black.

That doesn't mean these consumers don't watch the content but the idea of subtitles adds diversity and makes them more inclusive. The reality is that Kuiertyd only got where it was because eMedia Investments was only able to accommodate viewers in an area SABC 2 lacked and also the incorporation of international telenovelas.